Proxies for market research

Market research on the web means seeing a market from the inside: what local buyers find in search, which products shops stock, what they cost and how competitors present them. From an office in another country you see a different picture.

What this is for

• Sizing a market before entering it: assortment, price ranges and the number of sellers on local marketplaces.
• Tracking how competitors describe and position their products in each country.
• Comparing search demand and results across countries and cities.

How to set it up

Target the country, and the city when the market is regional. Use one sticky session per survey run, so a catalog and its pagination come from one address, and rotate between runs. Set the browser language and time zone to match the IP. Each country guide lists the local sites people check and the settings that matter there.

Good practice

• Collect public data only, and respect each site's terms and rate limits.
• Store aggregated figures rather than personal data about sellers or buyers.
• Estimate volume first: a survey of a few thousand pages fits in a few GB. Bandwidth calculator.